sonata

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

noun A composition for one or more solo instruments, one of which is usually a keyboard instrument, usually consisting of three or four independent movements varying in key, mood, and tempo.

from The Century Dictionary.

noun In music, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, any composition for instruments: opposed to cantata.

noun In recent music, an instrumental work, especially for the pianoforte, made up of three or four movements in contrasted rhythms but related keys, one or more of which are written in sonata form.

nounexposition, containing the first subject, followed by the second, properly in the key of the dominant or in the relative major (if the first be minor);

noundevelopment or working out, consisting of a somewhat free treatment of the two subjects or parts of them, either singly or in conjunction;

nounrestatement containing the two subjects in succession, both in the original key, with a conclusion. The succession of sections and the relations of keys are open to considerable variation, and episodes often occur. The sonata form is distinctive of at least one movement of a sonata or symphony, and usually of the first and last; it also appears in many overtures.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

noun(Mus.) An extended composition for one or two instruments, consisting usually of three or four movements

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

nounmusic A musical composition for one or a few instruments, one of which is frequently a piano, in three or four movements that vary in key and tempo

Choices include the third movement of violin sonata no. 24 in C major (the high tones of the violin work wonders on the parasympathetic nerve), first movement of the oboe quartet in F major (the high frequency tones have a soothing effect on the cranial nerves) and the second movement of 35th symphony in D major (the calm arpeggios relieve tension from the body).

Choices include the third movement of violin sonata no. 24 in C major (the high tones of the violin work wonders on the parasympathetic nerve), first movement of the oboe quartet in F major (the high frequency tones have a soothing effect on the cranial nerves) and the second movement of 35th symphony in D major (the calm arpeggios relieve tension from the body).

In it, in fact, Beethoven may be said to have broken away from form, for after the word sonata he adds the qualifying phrase "quasi una fantasia," signifying that, although he calls the work a sonata, it has the characteristics of a free fantasy.